1967 Custom Sport Shop Truck

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by bluex

Possibly I'm either starting on that or fuel injection as the next big project. Havent decided which one yet honestly.

Fuel Injection. 'Cause then you can trouble shoot it, get all the kinks worked out, then give me all the part numbers you used again

That's worked out pretty well for me so far... and I like the Holly Sniper kit... so...

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by GR8-68

I think the rockers was one of the easier parts to put on, with what you have already accomplished the rockers will be a breeze for you

I hope so. There are a couple of concerns. I've seen videos where they fit kinda bad at the front, and I've seen some people have to split them at the front or back to fit (like I had to do the fender cup patch.)

Originally Posted by Beetle

Read this from the start to now. Looks good man! Makes me wanna take all the rust outta mine and make it nice

I was seriously surprised at the amount of rust inside my doors. Those two little bitty holes in the front corner were the only "bust throughs" on the entire door. I don't want to know what the inside of my cab roof looks like. The PS door was the nicer of the two. The DS has more rust through showing in the corners, but *should* be about the same amount of metal replacement.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Teaser shot...

[GR8-68]

I bought a set of nos rockers the aftermarket I held up that I had originally bought was not to bad though from what I could tell.

[67ChevyRedneck]

So, I had a visitor over at my house for a couple weeks, courtesy of 52_Napco (Ken), coincidentally, he lives just a few minutes up t he road from me. For the life of me, I can't remember if it was a 71 or 72 now, but it's a pretty well optioned Cheyenne Super with the 400. UNBELIEVABLY RUST FREE. Like ZERO. NONE. All original paint.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Mas!

The kick panel was the worst part on the whole truck and it really just needed to be cleaned out and treated.

[67ChevyRedneck]

So, why is this beautiful, straight, rust free, original paint truck at my house? That's the same question my wife asked when I told her I bought it. Now, in our relationship, I can buy whatever the hell I want, I just have to give her a heads up when it's something $$$, you know, like a truck. So I pretended it was mine

Not wise apparently on my part, wasn't as funny as I thought it would be. Anyway, this beauty is getting cut down into a shorty, so I bought the gorgeous, pristine bed on it. For what you ask? To cut down, duh

Ken and I worked out a price we were both happy with, and he wasn't in a hurry, lives close by, and has his own flatbed tow truck... so he just dropped it off for me to take my time with.

[67ChevyRedneck]

So Ken dropped the truck off, but I couldn't work on it because it was the 29th Annual Run to the Sun. WOW! What a show. Over 3,100 vehicles 1987 and older, which was GREAT because I didn't have to walk past 1,500 late model Camaros, Mustangs, and Challengers to see the cool ****. I can't believe I've never been before. Definitely going back next year. The Upstate GM Truck Club had a good showing (I'm one of the original 6 founding members).

In case you haven't figured it out yet... I like photography and playing with photoshop. The pics actually don't look as good on the forum, I have to shrink them down a ton to upload.

[67ChevyRedneck]

This was our group. I'm in the dark/light gray baseball style hoodie in the truck bed.

I also found ken's GORGEOUS blazer at the show.

The last pic is Matt's truck, this was hilarious. It's going in for paint this year!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Back to the build.

I bought the bed in damn near perfect condition except one little ding on the back side of the DS near the taillight (popped out easily with a couple of studs)... and a little whiskey dent on the PS.

Now, when Ken and I looked at this bed together, it appeared to both of us that it looked like the trim and the rolled fender edge had taken most of the damage. Damn, were we wrong...

The first pic is how bad the bedside was pushed in. LUCKILY it had no affect on anything above the bodyline or past about 6" below the bodyline, so I was able to work from there. The deepest push in was about 5/8". You can't shorten a bedside when it's all jacked up, so let the repairs begin!

2nd pic is working with a hammer and wood block. I was able to get it back to around 1/8-3/16, but it just would not pop out anymore.

3rd and 4th pics are my attempts at pulling it out with studs and a slide hammer. It was so pushed in I would have never gotten it close this way.

Last pic is my favorite body hammer. I had it on top of the bedside and it fell off "perfectly" and broke I bought a new set, but I don't like them as much (they're slightly different). I might try to JB weld it? and slather a thick layer on the outside too???

[67ChevyRedneck]

Since I've done it before... I started slicing!

I spent a couple hours with the wheel arch area on my bench and was able to get it back close enough to be workable.

I also removed the wheel well, which came out with feaking hand tools. HAND TOOLS! With no stripped or broken bolts! I just had to have Jena hold the bolts down with a wood block from above so they stayed in the square hole. I also, somewhat unnecessarily, cut out the inner bed structure as well, but I wanted to be able to clean/coat the back of my welds on the outer skin so nothing ever comes back through.

Also, cutting the wheel arch was all that was needed to get the bed to pop out that last 1/8", it damn near did it on its own.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I was doing this for a couple hours each day after work before dark to try to get Ken his truck back. I was definitely grateful for having the whole truck/bed in tact. I don't know if I would have been able to get the bedside straightened correctly if it was off the truck.

Getting a little closer each day...

I'm glad I remembered I had my little shape keeper thing. I used the DS and the good area of the PS to check against, but was able to get the fender flare lined back up correctly. I'm glad I did. When I did my first couple of tacks I was about 1/8" off in some spaces. Not quite sure how my cuts got so "fat", but maybe that was part of the fender getting crushed, I don't know, but it's back to the way it should be now.

The first few pics are when it was "wrong." It just didn't look right to me. Again, glad I remembered the shape tool.

[67ChevyRedneck]

YAY!

I can't tell y'all how much of a pain in the ass it was to remake that small reverse arch. I spent probably 3hours on my anvil. I also had another bedside I used as a "buck" to check as I went.

Pretty happy with the final result, will still need some filler, but just to smooth it out, not "create" the fender arch!

I also cleaned up and coated the backside of everything... this bed is C L E A N!!!

[67ChevyRedneck]

With that out of the way, the final checks and tacking the inner arch back in. I did double check to make sure the wheel well still bolted back in correctly.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Again, while I had the bed squared up and installed. I test fit my tailgate. You just can't beat OEM fit.

And this was just "throwing it on" with a couple quick adjustments.

This is the tailgate I picked up from a board member years ago. The tailgate that was part of my bed was not included in the sale...

[67ChevyRedneck]

The gate did have some pretty hefty whiskey dents, especially along the bottom, I was going to fill them in until I realized how deep they were. They're much straighter now.

[67ChevyRedneck]

The top only had a slight bow. I just couldn't get it back with a slide hammer.

Using the bed, I cut a slit where the bow was the worst and welded one of my tie down straps to it and cranked it down. I did it once and tacked it in place, but it wasn't enough. I had to overpull it then tack it. then that finally worked.

2nd pic is bow, 3rd is back straight!

[67ChevyRedneck]

That was the start of last weekend, I finished it by disassembling the bed. It literally came apart like butter. I only had to tack weld 3 or so of the bolts so they wouldn't spin. I made quick work of it with Jena's help.

It was sad to see her go, but Ken picked her up on Monday. He said he already had the shortbed (aftermarket) bed on the way and was hoping to cut the frame soon. I look forward to seeing it done. He was torn with keeping it patina and matching the bed... but on the other hand the truck was literally SO CLEAN it deserves a factory color repaint. Whatever he decides, it's going to be a nice truck!

[67ChevyRedneck]

...and as a thank you for helping, I took both my girls to see Beauty and the Beast/Kong double feature at one of the few drive ins left in SC. It's about a 3 hour round trip, and the 2nd movie didn't end until 12:30, but it was a great night, weather was perfect too.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I finished my door, so I could work on the bed. Didn't realized the pics came out like crap, but it came out really well.

I also played around with what the longbed could look like slammed It's laying bed.

[GR8-68]

Some very nice metal work there Jesse

[67ChevyRedneck]

You're up late! I have insomnia sometimes... :/

That's not all...

Look at how freaking awesome these are!!!

The black spray paint is from popping out the ding it had in that area, it was still on the truck and I didn't want to get it wet.

I forgot to do a before pic, but there was just a tiny bit of surface rust in there. I coated it again to make it last that much longer.

I also plan to use a sprayer to coat the backside of my welds too.

[67ChevyRedneck]

And I feel like an ass, because I got excited and completely forgot pics, but I cut and fit the front half.

Its kind of neat looking though, right? I mean, what if I just cut 8" off the front and 4" off that back. Then people would look at it, like wtf is that? I mean, from the angles I took the pics, at first glance, you don't notice the back half is kinda way too long.

[67ChevyRedneck]

The money shots. I had to redo a few spots welds, push/pull here and there, but all the important areas are as straight/flat as I could get them.

My welder is almost out of gas and I could not find ANYONE open today (I knew it was low and completely blanked on getting it done on Friday), so I won't be doing anymore than tacking these this weekend.

I also checked my reference points multiple times.

[67ChevyRedneck]

So, I really wanted to get rid of the side markers and chop the rear all in one shot.

Theres a couple ways out there with small variations, but no one details how its done, and the one pic I was going by was in a build thread where the owner had a shop do it, so again, no details, just one pic.

I wanted to keep the inner bodyline in the bed factory, so I'm going to copy this.

I also needed to make sure it was flat all across the area I was cutting.

I made the last pic for a friend